This invention relates to an agriculture implement and more particularly to an agriculture implement for connecting soil engaging tools to mobile agricultural equipment.
Modern farmers, in order to economize on various agricultural operations, are today doing several of these operations in a single pass across a field by trailing compound or multiple devices behind a single tractor. For instance, tillage and fertilizing operations may be accomplished simultaneously in this manner. In order to further economize, many farmers are trailing large fertilizer nurse tanks behind a fertilizer injector rather than individually filling carried, spaced fertilizer tanks. This trailing nurse tank is usually heavy and tends to produce wide deep tracks in the just worked field, leaving the ground hard-packed and vulnerable to water erosion and weed growth. Thus, it is important to provide a device to remove these tracks. Because a number of different nurse tanks may be used during a single day, such a track removal device should be easily transferred from one nurse tank to another. In this regard see my copending application Ser. No. 897,114, filed Apr. 17, 1978, entitled QUICK MOUNTING MECHANISM FOR AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT. It is also important that such a track removal device be easily adjustable, as field conditions call for various tool depth and tool spacing settings, and such adjustability should not interfere with transferability. In this regard, the track removal device ideally should be independently mounted behind each individual tire in order to better follow the contour of the ground and render the device light enough for easy handling. Still, further, the tools of such a track removal device should not be fixed in position in vertical adjusted relationship to the ground, as rocks and other obstructions are frequently encountered which would otherwise cause breakage and/or put excessive strain upon the equipment behind which the device is trailing. Although it is necessary not to have the track removal device fixed in relationship to the ground, yet it should be biased theretoward, to reassume, after striking an obstruction, a selected depth in the soil being worked. Still further, it is desirable that the device be easily disengaged and locked out of operational position without detaching the entire structure at such times when it is not desired to work the soil, for example, when driving down a road or transferring between separated fields.